The subject matter herein relates generally to terminal feed alignment aids for terminal crimping machines.
Electrical terminals are typically crimped onto wires by a crimping machine to form a lead. In operation, a terminal is placed in a crimp zone, and an end of a wire is inserted into the ferrule or barrel of the terminal. A ram is caused to move toward the base through a crimp stroke, thereby crimping the terminal onto the wire. The terminals, prior to crimping, are typically provided in strip form. The strip of terminals must be manually loaded into the crimping machine by an operator. The position of the terminal strip within the crimp zone is critical to the overall performance. A terminal that is not properly located in either the side-to-side or front-to-back directions will not meet the crimp specification after it is crimped to a wire. Leads that do not meet crimp specifications are discarded.
There are several mechanical adjustments within the crimping machine to position the terminal within the crimp zone relative to the mechanical crimp tooling. It is up to the skill of the operator to properly make those adjustments. One area of difficulty is adjusting the side-to-side feed position, which is especially difficult with physically small terminals. The operator must exercise great care, exceptional vision, and finesse to adjust the crimping machine so that the terminal is properly centered relative to the mechanical tooling. In addition to requiring skill and diligence, these small manual adjustments take time and reduce production efficiency. Costs are increased due to reduced efficiency and discarded misaligned leads. There is a lack of gages or setup tools to help the operator with this task.
A need remains for a crimping machine that supports proper alignment of the terminal relative to the mechanical crimp tooling.